Make up brushes travel roll

Between visiting friends/boyfriend and trips across the Channel on press trips (one of the perks of working on a magazine about France!) it seems like I'm permanently packing a weekend bag for nights away from home. You'd think by now I'd be an expert at packing light but I always seem to be cramming things into my bag so I am a big fan of anything that makes travelling easier and this roll is an ideal way to carry all my make up brushes.

The idea for making this came from the blog Trends With Benefits which I discovered recently and is fill of great ideas and inspiration.

First you need to decide how many brushes and what size you need to fit in (as you can see I have a lot!) and measure the fabric accordingly to be large enough to fit in all of your brushes.

You need two pieces of fabric for the inside and outside of the roll, a contrasting fabric to form the pockets for the brushes and a piece of felt to sandwich between the two main pieces to stiffen the roll and ribbon to tie the roll.

I pinned the outside piece of fabric onto the felt and sewed along the edge to attach them together.

Then I folded the contrasting fabric in half (right sides together), sewed along the long edge and turned the right way round. Position on the inside piece of fabric and pin along three edges. 

Next you need to mark out the slots for the different brushes. I did this by placing each brush between the main fabric and the contrasting fabric and pinning enough space for each brush - the pins may need some tweaking to fit all the brushes in. Then sew neatly along the pin lines to create the brush slots.

Work out where the ribbon is going to attach and pin both ends onto the wrong side of the outside/felt fabric. Place the inside and outside fabrics together (right sides together) with the ribbon sandwiched in between. Then sew along three edges and along part of the final edge leaving enough space to turn the roll the right way round. Sew the gap up using an invisible stitch.

Et voilà a travel roll to keep all your make up brushes neat when you're on your travels! 

Rejuvenated Ottoman

The inspiration for the rejuvenation of this ottoman came from the TV programme 'Kirstie's Vintage Home' which I absolutely loved! It gave me heaps of ideas to give old furniture a new lease of life and I've slowly been putting them into practice around my family home.

This was how the ottoman looked before I got my hands on it. Pretty bland and uninspiring!

The first step was to paint the ottoman inside and out. It is going into my parent's bedroom which is pale blue and red so I used this as my colour scheme. I used the same paint that was used to paint their walls so just ordinary emulsion paint. It needed 2 coats of paint to cover the wood completely but if you wanted to keep the wood effect you could use a watered down paint as a wash and the wood grain should still show through.

Once the paint had thoroughly dried I covered the top of the lid with wadding, bought quite cheaply from Hobbycraft. I trimmed the edges so the wadding fitted and stuck it down with double-sided tape.

Next step was to cover the lid with fabric. I chose this gorgeous patterned fabric - in red to match the colour scheme. First I unscrewed the hinges so the lid was separated from the box. Place the fabric with the pattern straight and centred and then flip the lid over. 

Now fold over the edges of the fabric to create a hem to hide the raw edges. This stage is a lot easier with two people so one can hold the fabric taut while the other hammers the tacks in. You can either use a staple gun or hammer tacks in to secure the fabric.

Secure the fabric in the centre of each edge to keep it in place and then work your way around the lid hammering in as many tacks as needed. I folded the corners like you would when wrapping a present, you may need to trim some of the fabric otherwise it will be too bulky.

Et voilà a super stylish ottoman to provide storage and look fantastic! I'm quite jealous this is going in my parent's room, I might have to find one for me!